Abstract:
Cephalosporin acetylesterase hydrolyzes cephalosporins at 3-position. Deacetylcephalosporins obtained are valuable intermediates in semisynthetic cephalosporin production. Many modifications can be made at the 3-position by nucleophilic displacement of the acetate group to yield compounds with improved biological activity. Cephalosporin acetylesterase was recovered from the supernatant of a B. subtilis WRRL-B-558 culture. Purification of the enzyme was achieved by procedures involving heat denaturation, ultrafiltration and column chromatographies on Q-sepharose Fast Flow, Sephadex G-200 and Phenyl Sepharose CL-4B. The procedures resulted in 21.5 fold of purification and 14 % recovery of the enzyme activity. The purified enzyme was homogeneous on polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis as indicated by both silver staining and esterase activity staining. The molecular weight of the esterase was estimated to be 130 kDa by gel filtration. Subunit determination of the purified enzyme by SDS-PAGE showed that it composed of 4 identical subunits with a molecular weight about 32 kDa.The enzyme had a temperature optimum at 50 degree C and a pH optimum of 7.5. It was highly stable in the pH range of 5.0 to 11.0 and retained full activity at 60 degree C for at least 2 hours. The Michaelis-Menten constant (Km) and Vmax for α-naphthyl acetate were 5.97 mM and 1.47 µmol/min/ml, respectively. The enzyme was sensitive to Fe3+ and Zn2+. Since the enzyme was markedly affected by PMSF and 2-mercaptoethanol, the enzyme was probably a serine esterase with at least one disulfide bridge. Analysis of reaction mixtures prepared by incubation of the enzyme solution and cephalosporin C and 7-ACA using TLC and HPLC showed that cephalosporin acetylesterase from B. subtilis WRRL-B-558 could hydrolyze those substrates and yielded the deacetylated products.